First Female Commanders at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst & West Point

British Army Officer Training

The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS), the British Army’s centre of excellence for the training of the British Army’s future generation of officers, has appointed its first female commander.

Lieutenant Colonel Lucy Giles, of the Royal Logistics Corps (RLC), will take charge of New College.

Lucy commissioned into the RLC from the Camberley-based academy’s last female full company of officers in August 1992.

During her 24 years with the British Army, Lucy has been on operations and deployments to Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, East Timor, South Africa and Northern Ireland.

She was also the first female Officer Commanding of 47 Air Dispatch Squadron RLC.

US Officer Training

On 05 January 2016, Brigadier General Diana Holland, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, will be appointed the 76th Commandant of Cadets at the elite US military Academy known as West Point. General Holland graduated from West Point in 1990.

General Holland will become the first female commandant of West Point, and is currently serving as the first female General of the US Army’s Fort Drum and 10th Mountain Division.

References

BBC News (2015) Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to get First Female College Commander. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-35082705. [Accessed: 24 December, 2015].

British Army (2015) First Female College Commander at Sandhurst. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.army.mod.uk/news/28109.aspx. [Accessed: 24 December, 2015].

Jamieson, A. (2015) West Point Names Diana Holland as First Woman Commandant of Cadets. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/west-point-names-diana-holland-first-woman-commandant-cadets-n480906. [Accessed: 24 December, 2015].